i am eating a unique version of the popular "Espetada Madeirense" - which is usually made from chunks of beef sliced up and put over a skewer this evening... it will be goat meat chunks instead of cow... very shortly

i'm kinda equivocal about the goat meat i've tried so far, and reality is most of it is 10 month old billy goats, not fully mature, really, it's kid... some people like it young but i am not one of these

but charcoal, smoke and char have a way of improving meat such that it might be very substandard but is passable if it is char grilled or spit roasted

will bring the photographic equipment to capture some recordings of the thing that i get to entertain whoever is curious about some obscure, not well known local culinary culture

the supply of young billy goat meat on this island is a byproduct of one of the lesser known but important agricultural products of madeira - that being goat cheese, usually white

the cow cheese business is better known, and is on par with bulgarian and greek feta/sirene but the goat white cheese is not common anywhere i've been, but it happens here, and there is some local product, and various types, the greasy camembert style as well as the more solid greek feta style

anyhow, that's why there is this goat meat around and why it's mostly enjoyed by local people and not a tourist feature

i get the distinct impression that my nearby barman/barista/shopkeeper/restauranteur considers thet goat meat to be something of an obscure delicacy here, and i know he is butchering and cooking it fairly often... the liver is particularly nice when boiled, for example

to be fair, he is a portuguese south african, came here 15 years ago and bought up this place and has been in the business for a while, so it might be perhaps a portuguese south african thing, more than madeira itself. but i know the goats are around, and available, scarcely a week goes by that i don't walk around somewhere and catch that characteristic whiff of the billy goat funk and then actually see the lil guy tied up to some rebar pin in the ground

so, even if it is something of a foreign thing here, the white cheese industry has this secondary product and of course poor locals get into it, and clearly, quite a bit

i'd estimate over the summer i saw at least 20 full carcasses being dealt with so that's several dozens of people eating goat meat on a monthly basis at least i figure, just from this one source

anyhow, i have to go get it

i promise photos